


The Singing Death

by bottledyarn



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, M/M, Poison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 05:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottledyarn/pseuds/bottledyarn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles begins to hallucinate and have rushes of anger inexplicably a few days after Gerard attacked him.  Based after season 2 finale. Pre-slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Singing Death

Sleep never came easily to Stiles. It was always a battle, a battle he lost more often than not. The moment his head hit the pillow, it filled itself with thoughts of everything he’d ever done wrong. Guilt burrowed into every crevice of his mind, and it kept him awake.  
His father being fired, his mother’s death, Erica and Boyd disappearing- it all came crashing down on him. Most of the things weren’t even his fault, but whenever he tried to sleep, they felt like they were. For months, anxiety had been creeping up around him, forming a tight barricade between him and peace. He’d had small panic attacks- those scared him the most, as they had almost completely disappeared.  
He had gotten barely any sleep since Jackson’s long-awaited transformation into a werewolf. That night had somehow smashed every possibility of sleep away, and for the past three days he had found himself unable to fall asleep at all. He’d had a full-blown panic attack on the second day. His father had found him, which Stiles hated- he didn’t want to involve his father in any of his issues.  
Stiles blamed his hallucinations on being over tired and stressed. They didn’t start until after that one night, and they had been increasingly common since then. At first it was little things- he thought that the dust bunny under his desk was a huge spider, and he saw the clock move backwards. Then it got worse- the couch was crawling with spiders, his ceiling was dripping blood, the fridge was full of heads, and his math teacher had claws.  
Then it started mixing with reality- Stiles clearly remembered Peter Hale visiting their history class, but when he commented on it to Scott, he frowned and laughed slightly.  
“Peter didn’t come to our class,” Scott said. “What are you talking about?”  
Other things started getting strange, too- Stiles found himself inexplicably aroused by a few people. His attraction to Lydia doubled- as if it weren’t too strong already- and he found that he was suddenly, embarrassingly, drawn to stare at Derek rather lustfully during the newly-established after school pack meetings.  
His heart was constantly thrumming, much faster than usual, and it skyrocketed whenever someone so much as yelled in the hallway. Jackson jokingly feinted towards him in the hallway one day, and Stiles flinched away, his heart rate flying up into a frenzy.  
Light started hurting his eyes, and that gave in to practically constant headaches, which made his ability to sleep decline even further. A few of his teachers pulled him aside to comment that he wasn’t focusing very well and warned him not to slack off- his scores on tests and quizzes had apparently been sinking over the past week and he hadn’t even noticed.  
Stiles finally decided to talk about it with Scott after school, on the one day they didn’t have a pack meeting. It was five days after the first night of missed sleep, and he’d had hallucinations all day. He didn’t like to talk about his problems, it made him uncomfortable. But he was beginning to worry that the hallucinations weren’t from being tired.  
“I’ve been having anxiety lately,” Stiles began, leaning against his locker. He did his best to make his tone sound casual and steady. It was difficult to sound anything but terrified and shaky- he kept seeing physical manifestations of his nightmares in the corner of his eyes. “Panic attacks and some other stuff.”  
“You’ll get over it,” Scott said, tossing his bag into his locker. “It usually comes and goes in waves, right?”  
“Wh- what?” Stiles asked, finding it difficult to speak.  
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Scott said, patting Stiles’ shoulder with a bright smile.  
“No,” Stiles said, suddenly furious. He grabbed Scott’s shoulder and shoved him against the bank of lockers, taking advantage of Scott being unprepared for attack. “No, I won’t be ‘fine’. Just because I’m human doesn’t mean I don’t matter! I’m not just some convenient source of information and help, I need help sometimes too!”  
“I didn’t say you don’t matter,” Scott said, his eyes wide. “You do matter; I just didn’t think it was that serious!”  
“How could my panic attacks be anything but serious? You know this is serious, what’s wrong with you?”  
Scott looked affronted. “Sorry? I will help; it’s just that you don’t usually tell me about this kind of thing.”  
“Maybe because you’re no help!”  
“Why did you ask me, then?” Scott asked incredulously.  
Stiles shook his head. “Obviously I shouldn’t have.”  
He stumbled away, breathing heavily to try and cool down his suddenly overheated body. He reached the parking lot eventually, but paused at the edge of it, his eyes suddenly taking note of what was in front of him.  
Derek was in the parking lot, standing in front of a body. His eyes were black, empty holes, and his head snapped around unnaturally as Stiles approached.  
“You did this,” Derek said, his mouth widening into a wicked, unnatural snarl. “You deserve this.”  
Derek let out a piercing scream, his mouth growing into a dark pit, sharp teeth emerging from all sides. Stiles stared at Derek’s mutating face for a frozen moment. He finally regained control of his stiff body and was about to run to his car when he noticed who the fallen human behind Derek was.  
“Mom!” Stiles cried, sinking to his knees beside the crumpled, twisted form of his mother. She lay on the ground, her eyes wide and dead, staring up into the darkening sky. Her limbs were strewn carelessly across the pavement, and one of her slender hands lay open to the sky, the fingers slightly bent to the heavens as if welcoming death.  
“Mom, wake up!” he shouted, reaching for her. His hands slipped through her, pressing against the hard ground, scraping his skin.  
The world was twisting in front of Stiles, bending as if trying to change its appearance for his benefit only. He barely heard Derek shouting as his vision blurred more, brushing away the distorted view until nothing was left but darkness. 

 

He caught brief glimpses of life- arms lifting him, the slight bite of a seatbelt’s edge, the inertia of a car turning, the brush of soft lips against his forehead. The darkness would overwhelm him in lapping waves, occasionally pulling back so that he could taste the sting of consciousness. 

 

Stiles woke up on a hard metal surface. His palms pressed instinctively against it, and the metal was bitterly cold against his hands. He began sitting up, slipping back to the table when the blood rushed to his head dizzyingly.  
A hand pressed against his chest, light fingers resting on his throat to measure his heart rate. The person sighed, and Stiles tried to focus on their face, but the blinding light above them contrasted their face into darkness.  
“Stiles, can you hear me?” they asked, their voice suddenly breaking through the dull fog in Stiles’ head.  
He swallowed dryly, pushing himself into a sitting position, much slower this time. The world still spun, and brief flashes of light disoriented him for a moment, but he was finally able to make some sense of his surroundings. He was in one of the examination rooms in the veterinary office, and Derek and Dr. Deaton were standing in front of him.  
“Can you hear me?” Derek asked, keeping his voice steady and slow, his eyes trying to catch Stiles’.  
It was hard to zero in on Derek’s sharp gaze- it was like trying to focus a microscope that had a smudged lens and a broken focus knob in the first place. Stiles would try and adjust his focus, but everything would blur dizzily and he’d have to blink it all away and start over. He finally managed to steady his eyes, keeping them locked on Derek’s.  
“Yes,” Stiles said finally, blinking.  
“I believe you’ve been poisoned,” Dr. Deaton said, crossing his arms. “And from what Derek’s told me, I have a slight suspicion as to what the toxin is, but I would like to be wrong.”  
Stiles didn’t say anything, working on keeping his eyes still and clear. Derek frowned slightly, momentarily glancing away from Stiles’ suddenly steady gaze. The boy’s abnormally wide pupils made his eyes dark and bottomless, and the general lack of Stiles in the gaze was more than a little bit unnerving.  
“Has anyone attacked you in the past few days?”  
Stiles didn’t answer, instead trying to count the flecks of gold in Derek’s irises. Dr. Deaton took his silence as a ‘no’ and he adjusted the book in his hands before speaking again.  
“I have a list of symptoms; I need you to tell me which ones you’ve experienced. You can just nod,” Dr. Deaton said. “Or, well, you can just tell me which ones you haven’t experienced; just stop me if one isn’t right.”  
Stiles nodded, breaking his eye contact with Derek to stare steadfastly at the floor.  
“Hallucinations, both auditory and visual,” Dr. Deaton began. “Violent thoughts and behavior, dilated pupils, photophobia, dry mouth, tachycardia, amnesia-”  
“No,” Stiles said firmly. “I don’t forget things.”  
“You can’t remember anyone attacking you or being in any kind of position to poison you,” Derek said. “So you must have forgotten something.”  
Stiles shook his head. “Gerard. Gerard could have.”  
“What?” Derek asked. “You didn’t say that before. When did he attack you?”  
Stiles closed his eyes, his head pounding from the bright exam room lights. “Gerard attacked me when I went to help…to try and help Erica and Boyd.”  
“What?” Derek repeated.  
“But I don’t remember him injecting me with anything…”  
“You might have forgotten. Amnesia,” Dr. Deaton continued his list, frowning down at the thick book. “Failure to separate reality and fantasy, heightened body temperature, startling easily-”  
“I don’t know about that one,” Stiles said, his words reaching him slightly stiltedly. He wondered absently if they sounded slurred to anyone else.  
Derek abruptly shoved a metal tray off the counter, making it crash to the ground. Stiles jumped involuntarily, frowning at Derek.  
“Slurred speech,” Dr. Deaton continued. “Loss of coordination, inability to concentrate, orthostatic hypertension- that’s head rushes, difficulty sleeping in normal patterns, attention deficit, and hyperactive arousal.”  
Stiles felt the blood rush to his face at the last symptom, and he refrained from casting a glance in Derek’s direction.  
“Unless we are missing something important,” Dr. Deaton said wearily. “I know what toxin you are being affected by.”  
“What is it?” Derek asked, turning towards the veterinarian.  
“It’s a mutated…amalgamation of datura and brugmansia. This specific poison is known as ‘The singing death’, because of its hallucinatory nature and the fact that both datura and brugmansia are known as angel’s trumpets.”  
“The singing…death?” Derek asked.  
“Yes,” Dr. Deaton confirmed. “The final effects of the poison are seizures, coma, and death.”  
“What’s the antidote?” Derek asked urgently. “We can find it.”  
“There is no known antidote. There are a few things that can sometimes slow the process, but there’s no way to prevent death.”  
Stiles stood up suddenly, his feet landing heavily on the tiled floor. He managed to make it out of the pulsating room before either of the two men could catch him, and he reached the dense woods nearby. The trees crawled around and over him, suffocating him until he had to lean against one of the monsters, letting its arms wrap around him with whispers of death. His heart pounded in his ears, warning that he needed to get away. He could hear himself screaming, but it was disconnected somehow, and was just a noise, not something he was creating.  
A grip stronger than that of the tree suddenly captured his waist and Stiles nearly fell, having been tugged suddenly away from the murderous tree. He could see dark water rising up around him, and it filled his lungs mercilessly.  
“Stop! Stop!” Stiles cried, thrashing against the powerful hold. “Please just let me go, I can’t breathe, please, I’m drowning, let go!”  
The hands released him and he fell to his knees, his feet twisting him around.  
“I’m not going to hurt you,” someone said, lifting him off the ground. “I promise.”  
Stiles leaned into them, the petrifying fear of being held under water suddenly evaporating as the murky water melted away.  
“You’re going to be okay,” they said. “You’re not drowning.”  
He felt himself being carried and then lowered to a curb. The person stood over him, their breathing heavy but not labored.  
“Dad?” Stiles asked, suddenly sure that his father was there to help him.  
Derek sat down beside him gingerly, leaving a large space between them.  
“I don’t know what to do,” Derek said, his voice sounding much less like an Alpha and more like a child.  
Stiles shifted over slightly, leaning his head against Derek’s shoulder tiredly, feeling him tense beneath his jacket.  
“Did you kiss my forehead when I was half asleep or did I imagine that?” Stiles asked, his voice raw from screaming.  
“That was real,” Derek said. “My parents always did that when I got sick.”  
Stiles nodded slightly, wincing at the pain in his head that the movement encouraged.  
“You’re getting soft with your old age,” Stiles said, smiling. “Next thing you know, you’ll be baking cookies and hosting board game night every Friday.”  
Derek didn’t comment- Stiles being obnoxious was better than Stiles not being himself. There was something oddly comforting in Stiles’ sarcastic, teasing remarks.  
“I don’t want to die,” Stiles said quietly, his smile dropping away.  
“I should take you home,” Derek said firmly, standing up and carefully raising Stiles to his unsteady feet. “There’s nothing else to really do.”  
“I don’t want to go home,” Stiles said, his dark eyes suddenly frantic. He pawed at Derek, trying to push away and yet still clinging at Derek’s shirt. “I can’t die.”  
Derek swallowed, staring down at the boy. This wasn’t Stiles. Not anymore. This was a sad imitation of him, a copy that intensified all of the tiny weaknesses of the human. But he knew that Stiles was in there somewhere, his humor and intelligence and bravery locked away by this poison.  
“Everyone dies in the end,” Derek said, trying to grab Stiles’ wrists so he would stop clawing at Derek’s chest. “Everyone.”  
“I’m not ready to die!” Stiles said, his eyes filling with tears. “I, I don’t, I d-”  
He slumped into himself, concealing his weak, hiccuping sobs. He leaned heavily into Derek, most of his weight dangling against Derek’s arms and torso.  
Derek let out a breath, trying to think clearly since Stiles obviously couldn’t anymore.  
“You don’t have to die,” Derek said carefully, holding Stiles still in his arms. Stiles looked up at Derek, his eyes hopeful, brightness breaking through the cloudy uncertainty and despair that had crawled over Stiles’ usually intensely clear eyes.  
The emotion changed abruptly, mutating into a face of anger.  
“Don’t lie to me,” Stiles said, clawing away from Derek, managing to stand up. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”  
“Stiles,” Derek said, standing up slowly as if approaching a wild animal. “I’m not going to lie to you.”  
“If you had a cure all along, you would have said something!” Stiles cried, flinching as if tempted to reach out and hit him. “You’re just like everyone else, I don’t want false apologies and lies, I want reality!”  
“I’m not lying,” Derek said. “Stiles, you’re going to be fine, you just have to trust me.”  
“How?” Stiles demanded. “How do you think you’re going to do it?”  
“Stiles, I would have to change you.” 


End file.
